Hibernating through Holidays.

[diamone]

Anybody else do it? For safety reasons to stay off the roads or any other reason? I'm reminded once again why I've done it for 25 years (vicariously through my sisters and their kids and grandkids).

Due to the various apps and websites around that tell people where the best and most Halloween candy is - so people can bypass the ``holy-poly'' (as my grandmother used to say), I just say it's the same with anything else anymore.

My sisters (dental and medical assistants) back home in the upscale neighborhoods of Oakland-Detroit and Ashtabulah-Cleveland were giving out travel size toothpaste and floss and shampoo and little combs and every other kind of ``insulting'' treat.

After the third group of ingrates came by and complained - instead of the eggs on the house or TP in the trees - she had broken windows, busted out pipes (luckily none were gas) and other damage before her house - and pretty much the rest of her neighborhood of senior citizens - was blacklisted. And this is in UPSCALE NEIGHBORHOODS not the Black Hole of Calcutta.

First it was on one app - and then - as we watched live online in a sort of junior-version of Yelp - the sheer volume and intensity of vile bile with which these ``entitled'' little (and not so little) brats and their various enablers polluted the rest of the social media sphere within minutes - was amazing.

Since the little ones are starting to pick up on this same exact gimme gimme gimme attitude for Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Birthday etc etc etc as all their friends, neighbors and classmates, (shaking cards open to see if there's any cash or checks inside and then discarding the carefully chosen yet unread card on the floor with the wrappings and other trash) they're starting homeschool in January and both families are selling their houses and moving themselves and their families to the country in the spring.

Followed presumably by a great many other similar families decrying the decline of manners in America - much to the joy of the people who could never afford such a neighborhood as sisters are moving out of for people who are getting to move in from considerably more downmarket areas elsewhere in the Metroplex.

The gap between ``those that want it'' and ``those that don't'' whether it's Extreme Cuponing or Fix My Life or My Big Fat World or Junk Mail Junkie or anything else is getting wider and wider and wider everytime I turn around.

Just as the gap between ``those who want to put forth the effort'' and `those that just want a freebie' and then want to be obnoxious and egg/TP (or worse) a house because they are giving away travel-toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, combs,. towelettes, and other ``insulting'' things THEY got for free while traveling.

MY grandmother 20 YEARS AGO was ALREADY saying `if these kids and not-so-kids want to be obnoxious, they need to take what they get and appreciate it.' That was the first of many years tha corners on blocks became a dumping ground for perfectly good but unwanted (cheap) treats.

That year (1992 in the area between Youngstown and Pittsburgh), the ``mess'' was promptly cleaned up - and presumably used - by kids who hadn't yet got their attitudes polluted. By 1994 the city put up plastic barrels for all the unwanted treats which they promptly sent to ``poorer areas'' - but by 1995, everybody in the ``poorer areas'' had become just as picky as everybody else.

After charities started paying to send it all overseas to use as treats in developing countries - only to have it all sold on the black market by middlemen without even benefiting said kids with even rice and gravy in exchange - especially after the farmers didn't want it as supplements to cattle feed because everybody had more than enough of what they needed there as well - they started letting everything go to the landfills and that was that.

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if in ten or 20 years, the entire Halloween, Christmas, Easter or any other ``give-away'' holiday became a completely online-only experience: Connect those who want to give who have no aspirations of being appreciated with those who want to get with no aspirations of being grateful. With free shipping to boot and `reviews' so both givers and receivers can rate each other so nobody has to tolerate anything or anybody they don't want to anymore - same with the old ``only four kinds of buildings and four kinds of vehicles allowed on the roads''.

And people wonder why I want to be the First Fat Man on Mars - one-way trip notwithstanding.